It has been found that in operations where small amounts of spray painting is done, for example, an automobile body and paint shop, that it becomes a major, expensive, and wasteful undertaking to prepare a spray paint gun for spraying a prepared surface when the amount of painting to be accomplished is not great, such as an automobile door panel or the like.
In the past, the touch-up paint operator must prepare the paint in the spray gun paint container which is part of the apparatus of the spray gun, accomplish the painting, and then clean the spray gun, including the paint container. This means that the operator must expend the time of not only cleaning the gun itself by running a paint or lacquer thinner through it, but in addition, cleaning the can that holds the paint. This is wasteful of paint or lacquer thinner and time consuming and as a result, ends up as an added expense to the paint shop operator.
Now it has been known by the spray paint operators in touch-up type operations to place paint in a paper cup and with one hand holding the spray gun, bring the cup of paint under the siphon-tube and thereby accomplish the touch-up job. However, this method causes problems which may be easily forseen, but through perhaps inadvertent forgetfulness on the part of the operator, may cause a great deal of mess. Such an example utilizing the above method would be where the operator attempted to turn the spray can sideways which is a normal operation because of the spray pattern, whereupon the operator finds himself with a handful of paint. Other obvious problems are the increased chances of sloshing paint out of the open cup such that in many cases the chances of making a mess are sufficient that it is not worthwhile to take the chance.
In the prior art, inventors have devised various configurations for spray gun paint cup cover such as shown by the patent to Zupan, U.S. Pat. No. 3,714,967 wherein Zupan details a cup cover attaching to the paint container in a permanent relationship where the can cover has a pair of overlapping radial bosses on opposite sides of the cover to engage the paint can.
Similarly, Boltic, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,593,921 details means by which a paint container in which the paint is purchased, is readily attached to the spray gun, Boltic showing primarily a pair of hold-down clamps.
However, these means do not alleviate the problem of supplying a quick, inexpensive method by which a small or touch-up spray paint job may be performed.
Accordingly, there exists a need to provide a means by which inexpensive disposable cans may be adapted readily to the spray gun for spraying a small amount of paint while presenting a structure that does not spill paint readily from the disposable can interior when it is in place, and after the painting is accomplished, may be removed easily and the can discarded.